Science Q&A: Cold Weather & Global Warming

On Jan 26, 2:56*pm, Igor wrote:
On Jan 26, 10:20*am, tg wrote:



On Jan 26, 9:38*am, Igor wrote:

On Jan 25, 3:44*pm, Mike Jr wrote:

On Jan 25, 1:26*pm, Sam Wormley wrote:

Science Q&A: Cold Weather & Global Warming
Jay Gulledge, Senior Scientist and Program Manager for Science & Impacts

Is heavy snowfall or unusually cold weather inconsistent with global warming?

You need two things to create heavy snowfall: moist air and cold air. The two generally
don't occur in the same air mass because cold air can't hold much moisture. So you
need two air masses, one that is warm and moist and one that is cold and dry, to
collide with each other.

This condition is not only consistent with global warming, but it can be expected
to occur more frequently in certain places as a direct result of global warming.
Read more... [http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=11029591882...CZxg8RGZho...]

But global warming should make it less likely that those cold arctic
blasts head south.

Ask yourself this question: *Why does the arctic air always flow more
or less from northwest to southeast? *Once you answer this question,
maybe you'll understand just how silly that statement is.

Given that the temperature anomaly is on the order of 1/5 of a single
degree Celsius, Jay Gulledge is claiming an amazing effect for such a
small stimulus. *So what should we expect? *As CO2 builds up the world
goes more and more into an ice age? *

There's some consensus on that.

Which is there a consensus on? *The statement that a temperature
anomaly in the mean temperature is a 'stimulus' is as nonsensical as
the business about the cold arctic air.

Ice age following build up of CO2.

Ok thanks---that's what I thought.

-tg

On Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:10:30 -0600, Bill Ward
wrote:

On Wed, 27 Jan 2010 05:26:04 +1030, Surfer wrote:

On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:43:15 -0600, "mary" wrote:


"Sam Wormley" wrote in message
...

Science Q&A: Cold Weather & Global Warming Jay Gulledge, Senior
Scientist and Program Manager for Science & Impacts

Is heavy snowfall or unusually cold weather inconsistent with global
warming?

You need two things to create heavy snowfall: moist air and cold air.
The two generally
don't occur in the same air mass because cold air can't hold much
moisture. So you
need two air masses, one that is warm and moist and one that is cold
and dry, to
collide with each other.

This condition is not only consistent with global warming, but it can
be expected
to occur more frequently in certain places as a direct result of
global warming.


what a load of BS.

No. Its correct.

Another point is that if CO2 traps heat near the earths surface, then
air higher up will receive less heat from the surface so will become
colder.

Perhaps you could explain exactly how CO2 "traps" heat. My understanding
is that GHGs convert LWIR into sensible heat. The warmer GHG molecules
then heat the surrounding air, which convects high enough to radiate to
space via GHGs. Since the air is free to convect there's no "trapping"
of energy.

Can you explain why you think there's "trapping", or are you just
believing it because you've been told to?


That hypothesis should reveal itself quickly
with gross changes in high altitude temperatures
as surface humidity changes, or the shortness of
the range of LWIR is evident, as LTE seems to
suggest.

I sure hope climate science is better thought
out than such a simplistic assumption.


There is such a great difference in low level
proportions of water vapor and CO2, validity of
the assumption should be easy to determine.

"Igor" wrote in message
...
On Jan 26, 2:16 pm, BradGuth wrote:
On Jan 25, 10:26 am, Sam Wormley wrote:

Science Q&A: Cold Weather &Global Warming
Jay Gulledge, Senior Scientist and Program Manager for Science &
Impacts

Is heavy snowfall or unusually cold weather inconsistent withglobal
warming?

You need two things to create heavy snowfall: moist air and cold air.
The two generally
don't occur in the same air mass because cold air can't hold much
moisture. So you
need two air masses, one that is warm and moist and one that is cold
and dry, to
collide with each other.

This condition is not only consistent withglobal warming, but it can
be expected
to occur more frequently in certain places as a direct result ofglobal
warming.
Read more...
[http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=11029591882...CZxg8RGZho...]

As long as we hold onto our moon(Selene) we can't possibly have
another ice age, not to mention those added TeraWatts worth of our
mostly sooty energy plus artificially vaporized and natural water
cycles made acidic by our CO2, NOx and of course loads of sulfur,
plus various natural and artificial ventings of raw/toxic methane
contributions that are not exactly helping. Thanks mostly to the
solar wind, we are also losing our precious helium and hydrogen by
1001000 tonnes/sec (w/o solar wind that loss might average 10 tonnes/
sec, and without our contributions it might even conceivably drop 1 t/
sec). In other words, we seem to be making this global warming trend
a whole lot worse than mother nature could ever hope to achieve.

The good news is that essentially we’ll run ourselves out of many
natural reservoirs and buried kinds of raw elements, so that whatever
remains can readjust to the raped, plundered and pillaged reality of
getting on with the more natural trends of global geodynamics and its
diminished biodiversity of traumatized evolution that’ll have
considerably fewer humans to deal with.

Other than all that, plus a measured factor of global dimming that
absorbs more solar energy, what could possibly go wrong with the good
life w/o slow-ice on planet Eden/Earth?

Here’s a simplistic simulator package that has a little something for
everyone. (have yourself a ball)

Obviously aerodynamic drag (much greater before we had that moon), as
well as lacking important factors of the lithobraking, loss/transfer
of icy mass and other tidal forces of the sun are not involved within
this simulation, but none the less it’s a good enough example of how a
capture might actually be easily accomplished.
http://isthis4real.com/orbit.xml

There’s also the Roche Limit to consider:
“In 1848, Astronomer Edouard Roche noted that, if a satellite was
held together mainly by its own gravitational attraction, there would
be a minimum distance from the primary inside which the tidal forces
of the primary would exceed the satellite’s binding forces and would
tear it apart [Hoskin, 1996].”

The Roche Limit for two bodies is approximated by a function of their
densities:
Earth 18,470 km
Jupiter 175,000
Saturn 147,000
Uranus 62,000

Each near miss by that process of capturing an icy Selene of perhaps
8e22 kg, would have pulled large portions of that thick ice away from
its surface, and thereby making its capture easier as mass and thereby
energy is extracted from Selene.

~ BG

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzlG28B-R8Y


more like Bizzaro world

.. Generally things in Bizarro World are the opposite of things in this
world, however in Bizarro World things that are the opposite are the same
and things that are the same are opposite, leading to general confusion and
a lack of understanding. Though it may not make sense to us, it does make
sense to people in Bizarro World. However, in Bizarro World, people cannot
understand things that make sense

Surfer wrote:
On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:43:15 -0600, "mary" wrote:

"Sam Wormley" wrote in message
...
Science Q&A: Cold Weather & Global Warming
Jay Gulledge, Senior Scientist and Program Manager for Science & Impacts

Is heavy snowfall or unusually cold weather inconsistent with global
warming?

You need two things to create heavy snowfall: moist air and cold air. The
two generally
don't occur in the same air mass because cold air can't hold much
moisture. So you
need two air masses, one that is warm and moist and one that is cold and
dry, to
collide with each other.

This condition is not only consistent with global warming, but it can be
expected
to occur more frequently in certain places as a direct result of global
warming.

what a load of BS.

No. Its correct.

Another point is that if CO2 traps heat near the earths surface, then
air higher up will receive less heat from the surface so will become
colder.


Except that the greenhouse effect doesn't really work that way. The
greenhouse effect works from the top of the troposphere downwards.

A good introduction is he
http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/200...e-effect-pt-1/

"Mike Jr" wrote in message
...
On Jan 25, 9:15 pm, "Jonathan" wrote:
"Mike Jr" wrote in message

[]

*But once
* such a system approaches the tipping point, or point
* of trend reversal, the system / volatility / dramatically
* increases, foreshadowing the tipping point to an equally
* dramatic change in long term direction.

Take a look at this paper:
http://www.met.hu/idojaras/IDOJARAS_vol111_No1_01.pdf

There are energy considerations that lock the planetary average flux
optical depth to a value of 1.841.

Add as much CO2 as you want, the system will not reach a tipping
point. The only thing that can change this is a change in the amount
of insolation entering the top of the atmosphere or the amount of heat
coming up out of the ground.

--Mike Jr.


I tend to agree with the idea in that paper that the biosphere is
very stable, as I said later in my (long-winded) post...

"You can pump all the greenhouses gasses you want
into the atmosphere without much worry, provided
the...RATE OF CHANGE...is modest and steady.
The biosphere, and humanity will adapt just fine."


But I think the weak spot in that paper is in the
conclusion, when they wrote....

"The greenhouse effect is tied to the energy conservation
principle through the [....] equations and can not be changed
without increasing the energy input to the system."

Isn't human activity essentially increasing the energy input?
Things like life and 'wisdom' violate physical conservation laws
as the order or equilibrium is established internally, not from
boundary conditions. It's fine to assume solar radiation is
essentially constant, due to it's slow rates of change, but oil
isn't really part of the biosphere until we pump it up right?

But also the recent trend of 100,000 long year ice
ages, with brief warming periods, is thought to be
from astronomical reasons yet unknown. Which
hints that astronomical changes, like changing light levels,
orbits or impacts, tend to have a far stronger ability
to effect the biosphere than terrestrial changes.

In Complexity Science these two different types
of change, astronomical vs terrestrial, can be
placed in abstract form, which allows a clearer
view I think.

It boils down to the two primary ways in which change, or
disturbances, are connect to, or cascade throughout a system.

For instance, changes in solar radiation have a very high
level of parallel connectivity throughout the system.
Almost every system on Earth would be instantaneously effected
AND at the same time by a sudden change in sunlight.or even
some large impact from space. It's exactly that kind of disturbance
(massively and directly connected) which generates all kinds
of non-linear reactions, as it's like a shock wave that can snowball
and have all kinds of totally disproportional or unintended
reactions.

Call that kind of change 'top down', or dictatorial change.
The other kind is of course bottom up, or from the ground.
where change starts slowly and only spreads as fast as the
system will allow. And it's the second kind of natural change
through growth which is healthy and can be easily absorbed
by a stable biosphere.

Life, of course, is typically the second healthy type
of change. BUT, if the rate of changes due to life is
high enough, it acts like the first kind. Emergent
change, like intelligence or technology, can act
like astronomical change.

Which is why it's crucial that democracy span the
globe as soon as possible. Then all these problems
will take care of themselves. Even impacts and
unexpected 'issues' from the sun could be
.....handled then.



Jonathan


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